Joseph Langford was in Rome studying to be a priest when he came across a book that intrigued him and changed his life.

The tome was a biography of Mother Teresa, the Calcutta nun who would inspire him and one day be his cofounder in starting the Missionary of Charity Fathers. The religious community of priests has been based in Tijuana since 1988.

The former San Diegan said that he followed in Mother Teresa’s footsteps because her ministry to the poorest of the poor best exemplified the model of living the gospel.

Rev. Langford died of a heart attack Oct. 14 in Tijuana after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 59.

He was ordained an Oblate order priest in 1978 in Rome. Several years earlier he had been in a Rome bookstore when the cover of a book caught his eye. Malcolm Muggeridge’s “Something Beautiful for God” proved to be his first introduction to Mother Teresa. “Immediately, I felt that this was what I wanted to do with my life,” Rev. Langford said in a 1988 interview with The Tribune. “It just seemed that here was someone who was living the gospel to the letter in the 20th century, showing it can be done.” He would go on to meet her in person, work with her and write a book about her spirituality and message.

There was no order for priests in Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, until she and Rev. Langford co-founded the Corpus Christi Movement in 1981 for diocesan priests who wished to participate and live the spirituality of her work. The movement grew and by 1984 it became the Missionaries of Charity Fathers, said Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, superior general of the religious order. It was initially based in the Bronx but moved from New York to Tijuana in June of 1988.

Rev. Langford, who was fluent in Spanish and Italian, served as superior general for several years. He said that “Calcutta is everywhere” and that each person has special gifts and can help others. “(W)e are called to get involved with those who are less fortunate than we,” he said in the 1988 interview, “to love them in God’s name, to prove to them, not only in words, but in deeds, that there is a God who loves them and that we are his representatives as Christians.”

Although his family had moved to other parts of the country by 1988, Rev. Langford said moving back to the area was a homecoming for him as San Diego was the only home he ever knew.

He was born June 25, 1951, in Toledo, Ohio to Martha and Gerald Langford. The family moved to San Diego and he attended Our Lady of Grace school and was a 1969 graduate of University of San Diego High School.

In 1986, Rev. Langford wrote the meditation “I Thirst for you,” which has been translated into many languages and distributed worldwide. The meditation is an expression of the spiritual sentiments that marked his life and his pastoral work, said Rev. Kolodiejchuk.

He is survived by his mother; a sister, Mary; and two brothers, Christopher and Michael.